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Perhaps one of the greatest Sandbox MMO's ever made, and flew under everyones radar. It was such an addicting game...

I had some of my favorite moments in my history of gaming in that. Being an illegal arms dealer. Tricking the police & escaping. Just generally psych'ing out people in the Police zones by whipping out my gun then putting it away.

Also, the dirty cops. Prison breaks. Raiding other factions HQ's. Taking over cities. Random Alien infestations that forced everyone to work together, or we'd be overrun.

There was fight clubs in peoples houses, and just the way housing worked was wonderful.

One of my favorite moments is, I can remember running away from some cops or so(I was a Merc, I had my target and got him), warping into my House and seeing two guys standing there. They had hacked my apartment and were waiting for me. They were from a rival faction, and made some snarky comments, then mowed me down.

Full loot PVP. Player run entirely. No real restrictions on what you can do. Then they released it to retail, with a monthly fee and well, it just kinda flopped because it wasn't ready.

One fun aspect is that if you forget to buy a Clone...your character can perma-die.

I remember one time when some Police wanted to check my PP(Penalty Points, you get for killing someone), I was /dancing at the moment and I said I had to wait for the animation to finish. Then took off like a bolt of lightning as soon as it did, guns flying off in the backround as I ran for a teleporter and then ran from one to another, teleporting to a bunch of different places to throw them off my trail.

Ah, the memories of the game that I played like an addict. IT was sad when it went retail, I tried it though, but barely anyone bought the game, and so it became a ghost town. IT just wasn't ready to sell yet! If they had just waited...

One time we took of Manhattan from the Police, and then we forced them outta New York too. They were confined to their HQ. We raided that, but met much resistance, and eventually were wiped out after a many hour long battle.

It was never a pretty game, nor even a game with good shooter mechanics. But completely player run MMO's...something so fun about them, especially if people play them right.

Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!

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EVE is the best all around sandbox as far as combat, crafting, economy and empire buildings goes 90% of what happens in the game and is in the game item wise comes from players. You will have to like sci fi and spaceships though. ide highly recommend taking up the free trial.

However if you want F2P Age of Wushu is also a really great sandbox game. It ticks al the main boxes combat, crafting, territorial wars and a player driven economy.

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Perhaps one of the greatest Sandbox MMO's ever made, and flew under everyones radar. It was such an addicting game...

It didn't fly under our radar, actually. A lot of people here tried it at launch. I actually thought it might be interesting, myself, given the feature list. Then I actually played it.

It was so bad it was essentially unplayable, and I don't say that lightly. The game switched owners a bunch of time early on too, further destroying confidence in the game.

You are aware it's actually still in the hand of the original creators, just publishers changed, right?

Is that so?

From what I recall, Duplex's operations essentially came to a complete stop on two separate occasions. The game shut down pretty quickly after original launch. A relaunch was promised and then cancelled. And a second relaunch brought the game up again. I didn't really keep track of things much beyond that. I simply assumed the current incarnation was owned by a different group. I'll take your word for it, though, if you say that's not the case.

My broader point was that people actually gave this game a chance. In fact, a lot of the sandbox games out there have been given a chance. Sloppy launches, poor technical execution, and a bunch of other things always ended up hurting them early on, and they only ever achieved a niche playerbase.

But sandbox features are becoming mainstream now. There are now several games in the pipeline which plan to marry AAA quality production values and sandbox features. The irony is that none of them are coming from the US.

Age of Wushu has some. Dragon's Prophet will have a bunch of them. Then you have ArcheAge. DP is coming along nicely, and AA has been performing surprisingly well in the very picky KR market.

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Enjoying Darkfall UW atm. Keeping an eye out for Embers of Caerus, Pathfinder Online, Gloria Victis, The Repopulation, World of Darkness. All potentionally good sandbox mmorpgs but years from release. So your options might be slim atm, the near future looks promising :)

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If we're talking "most sandbox" then that's not a game at all. "Most sandbox" is things which are completely malleable like programming languages, clay, a canvas, or music.

The most sandbox games I'm aware of are Minecraft and Second Life, which are barely games (because they're so sandboxy.)

And then down a few tiers from that are EVE and Darkfall, which are actually fairly similar in magnitude of sandboxiness.

But if you're a gamer you're not really going for maximum sandbox. You're going for maximum fun, and sandbox-intensive game elements just happen to be part of how you have fun in a game.

"Joe stated his case logically and passionately, but his perceived effeminate voice only drew big gales of stupid laughter..." -Idiocracy"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." -Socrates

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Originally posted by Axehilt

TBH, Don't Starve is a far better sandbox than those two. Not MMO (not even multiplayer) but plenty of fun. Also considerably more sandboxy, given that you can manipulate the world. Although not quite as sandboxy as Minecraft (and WURM too, from what I understand.)

wow, after all your game design rants,

you're actually gonna recommend Don't Starve.

The End---------------------------i don't expect to like Darkfall, altho i may like it MORE than other MMOs. i know it is gonna have a very frustrating level of grind to it, even if its significantly less than most. waiting for a pure FAST action virtual world. dice rolling & character levels (even "skills") IN COMBAT should have never carried over from pencil & paper to a computer that can reasonably model 3D spaces and objects

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It's exactly the sort of gameplay-focused sandbox that sandbox games should be like.

It's very unlike the sort of timesink-intense sandbox MMORPGs that have crappy gameplay.

So I'm not sure what you're surprised about. I've frequently posted about how a gameplay-focused sandbox would be a blast. It's not a big surprise that Don't Starve is fun. It'd be even better as a small-scale multiplayer title actually (but considerably worse as an MMO.)

"Joe stated his case logically and passionately, but his perceived effeminate voice only drew big gales of stupid laughter..." -Idiocracy"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." -Socrates

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funny that you have over 4000 posts, and yet, you apparently don't READ these forums.

The End---------------------------i don't expect to like Darkfall, altho i may like it MORE than other MMOs. i know it is gonna have a very frustrating level of grind to it, even if its significantly less than most. waiting for a pure FAST action virtual world. dice rolling & character levels (even "skills") IN COMBAT should have never carried over from pencil & paper to a computer that can reasonably model 3D spaces and objects

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It's exactly the sort of gameplay-focused sandbox that sandbox games should be like.

It's very unlike the sort of timesink-intense sandbox MMORPGs that have crappy gameplay.

So I'm not sure what you're surprised about. I've frequently posted about how a gameplay-focused sandbox would be a blast. It's not a big surprise that Don't Starve is fun. It'd be even better as a small-scale multiplayer title actually (but considerably worse as an MMO.)

i suppose you have a different version of Don't Starve than the one i played.

because calling what i played fun would be a big surprise.

The End---------------------------i don't expect to like Darkfall, altho i may like it MORE than other MMOs. i know it is gonna have a very frustrating level of grind to it, even if its significantly less than most. waiting for a pure FAST action virtual world. dice rolling & character levels (even "skills") IN COMBAT should have never carried over from pencil & paper to a computer that can reasonably model 3D spaces and objects

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funny that you have over 4000 posts, and yet, you apparently don't READ these forums.

I think every "good" post I read about DF is counterbalanced by a healthy dose of caveats, excuses and acknowledgments of failure in various areas. I think a certain type of player really likes the concept of DF, I can't recall many saying it's good.

On the other hand there are many posts complaining about how half-arsed, bug-ridden, hackable, and generally toxic the game is.

The general vibe I get is that it's on a slightly higher rung than that awful awful "The War Z".